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Activity: Box filled with an assortment of red and white items from around the house.

Candle

Plastic disposable plate

Ribbon

Monkey toy

Small colander

Clag glue pot

Cloth nappy

Success: 10/10 and NO tears. She played with this for over an hour, and although she favoured one item she did go back to the rest a number of times.

Expected: I thought MT would gravitate to one item and play with that. She did. The ribbon.

Unexpected: Since a lot of the items are ones MT has seen before in various capacities I didn’t think they would hold her interest for long.

Outcome: A really great idea that I have seen many mums do with their kids. MT was very interested in exploring the box and examining each item. She was happy to play with this on and off for the entire week. WIN!

Activity: Two piles of baked beans on the highchair tray. One hot and the other cold.

Success: 6/10. Mild success tainted severely by the climatic tears.

Expected: A lot of mess.

Unexpected: The tears.

Outcome: This kept MT occupied for about 20min. She started slowly, carefully touching each pile. Going from one to the other until she took a big handful of the warm ones. She swirled them together and tried really hard to pick up individual beans and taste them, sucking the juice from her fingers. After swishing them around the tray some more, she began mushing beans into the tray, into her hair and onto her legs.

At this point she realised she was covered in baked beans (what the?!) and burst into tears.

Not quite the sensory experience we were looking for.

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Deb from Learn with Play at home has a list of the things baby might be learning during this activity.

While it can be overwhelming most of these ideas can be easily simplified and tweaked to suit your own situation. Essentially it’s what parents have been doing for years. Exposing their children to a variety of objects/substances to either

a) keep them occupied or

b) further their understanding and appreciation of the environment around them.

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If you want to know more about the benefits of Sensory Play there are a couple of great articles below.

Meet me

A wife and a mother of one, I have a simple, quiet life in the suburbs. I have no tertiary qualifications and no formal training. I don't have hundreds of followers or tonnes of repins but what I do have is creativity, imagination and a desire to make our lives memorable.